Week in Review

This week we learn that Wi-Fi can should be kept away from junk, a Skyrim player has gotten ahead … or two in the game and facial hair has raised quite a bit of money for cancer research.

Valve’s Gabe Newell Says Piracy Is a Service Problem

The CEO and cofounder of Valve is never short on opinions. As the creator of some of the most beloved games titles (Team Fortress 2, Portal, Half-Life) and owner of the most pervasive online gaming portal for the PC platform, Gabe Newell has earned the right to express them. In an interview for the University of Cambridge’s school newspaper, Newell said that the way to end piracy is to provide a service that’s more complete than cracked software, and that restrictive DRM only encourages more piracy. (Link)

Study: Don’t Use Wi-Fi Near Your Junk

Mainstream news outlets always seem to cry wolf at various technologies posing health problems. Remember how cell phones were supposed to give you brain cancer and infect your soul with spirit of Mephistopheles? So it is with great skepticism that I present to you a study from Argentina that proves sperm cells – one half of the necessary ingredients to make tiny baby humans – were never meant to browse the internet. (Link)

Creepy Skyrim Serial Killer Keeps Heads on Shelves

Skyrim is now well-recognized as the pinnacle in open-ended and emergent gameplay. The designers at Bethesda have provided a fantasy sandbox where players are generally able to do whatever they wish. While some players have scoffed at not being able to murder children – and installed mods which allowed such “pedo-cide” – one player decided to turn the creep-factor up to eleven without any apparent mods. The one-handed or two-handed weapon perk decapitation performs the killing blow by cutting off the victim’s head. YouTube poster “Symixable” created a video of his house which he just happened to decorate with the bodies and heads of the women he has killed in Skyrim. (Link)

Game Industry Grows $132,000 for Movember

Movember isn’t just an excuse for men to get sexy, you know. Behind all that luscious machismo lies a very good cause: raising awareness and funds to support research into treatments for prostate and testicular cancer. They’re not as flashy as boobs but they’re the parts we’ve got, so we do what we can with ’em. (Link)

Notch Steps Down as Lead Developer on Minecraft

In a post made to his personal blog this morning,Minecraft creator and Mojang founder Markus “Notch” Persson announced that he has stepped down as lead developer of the popular sandbox indie game. Jens “Jeb_” Bergensten will be taking over as lead developer, having worked on updates for Minecraft for the past year. (Link)